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[Guide] Full Support Morgana

I'm going to get to the point fairly quickly here - not going to cover base stats or ability descriptions or anything since all of that is common and readily available information.

I see a lot of Morgana guides lean in the direction of AP. IMO - AP Morgana, while fun, becomes more and more inferior to a straight tank/support Morgana the higher up you go in terms of competition, turning it into more of a pubstomping build.

I play Morgana in the vast majority of my games, and I view my priorities as such (in general order of importance) -

1. Spam Black Shield as often as possible to save allies from fight-making/breaking abilities (i.e. Blitz grabs, Ashe arrows, Fiddle crows, Rammus taunts, TF stuns, Poppy charges, etc.).
2. Get my ult stun off on as many enemy champions as possible in the middle of a team fight and get out alive.
3. Disable dangerous champions in team fights with Dark Binding (i.e. Fiddle w/ Crowstorm on, Rammus in powerball, Trynd, etc.).

Outside of those three things, I consider any damage I do to be little more than icing because there are usually hard carries on my team that can do a much better job of killing than I can, assuming that I set them up and support them properly. Either that or it's just just an AoE team, in which case the whole thing is a clusterf**k anyway. Regardless, the point is that AP doesn't help me do any of those things.

Why CDR runes? Because I don't like relying on golem buff. It isn't always up, and it isn't guaranteed that you're going to get it when it is up. I have a bit over 15% CDR from runes/masteries, which makes it easy to hard-cap through items.

Regarding Perseverence vs. Good Hands - I personally think that Perseverence is totally useless because the increased regen is negligible when you think about base regen values. People like to say "Oh you're only taking Good Hands because you intend to die", but the fact of the matter is that people rarely intend to die, it just happens whether you like it or not. You don't usually win every fight and you rarely win every fight with no casualties (unless you're steamrolling). Cutting time off your death can save turrets and inhibitors (not to mention cut down on loss of farm time if you happen to die early for some reason); ****py regen which will become even more useless by mid-game gives you nothing.

Insight and Blink of an Eye because I rarely ever take other spells on Morgana.

Spells
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Flash and Clarity - pretty much exclusively.

Clarity keeps me and my partner in our lane for a very long time. Flash has many different uses for escaping bad situations, setting up for ganks, chasing stragglers, and getting my ult off successfully in the middle of a team.

Items
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I build for survivability > CDR > magic pen > AP. Usually something like this -

I usually end games with around 3500 HP, 35-40% CDR, and ~200 AP. Most of my kills come from the laning phase. Once team fights start, I don't really get any kills, but I also get very few deaths and consistently rack up a lot of assists - which, IMO, is the way Morgana should be.

- I get Q first because I'm confident in my ability to hit the shots (most of the time - everyone has bad games) and it's easily Morgana's best harrassment ability at level 1 if you add in auto-attacks and whatever your partner can do during the disable.

- I only get one rank of Black Shield until the very end because I don't use it for the damage absorption - I use it stop CC's and other negative effects. I don't need the extra duration either because I tend to use it at the last possible moment (or as close to it as I can get).

- Max out W first because Morgana's farming ability blows if you don't.

- If the opponents in my lane don't have any abilities that can be countered by Black Shield, then I'll hold off on E for a bit and get some extra ranks of W instead so that I can farm better. However, most of the time, I get one rank of Black Shield ASAP because it can and will save you or your partner's life.

Lane Partners, Laning in General, and Team Fights
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One of the great things about Morgana, IMO, is that she goes well with pretty much anybody. Champions with AoE's are great because you can root people inside the AoE. Champions with stuns are great because you can just stack disables and win with auto attacks. Even hard physical carries work cause you can hold people in place for them.

However, the best partner that I've personally seen for Morgana is Anivia. It's just rape. You can both hold the opponent in each other's AoE and you have more stuns, slows, and roots than is reasonably fair. You can set each other up constantly either with Dark Binding -> Flash Frost or vice versa. You can use Clarity to its full potential since Anivia is so mana hungry. You can afford to be extra aggressive because of Black Shield and Anivia's egg, and Crystallize just adds insult to injury.

Blitzcrank is kinda hilarious too if he can hit his grabs. Rocket Grab + Dark Binding = lol. Double lol if you can do it at your tower.

I play Morgana solo mid occasionally, so she can definitely do it if you don't have anyone else to take mid... but generally I prefer to lane with someone.

As far as actual gameplay during the lane phase goes - a lot of it depends on who my partner is, how aggressive he is, who my opponents are, and how aggressive they are. As a general rule of thumb, I focus on farming and look for harassment opportunities, sometimes forcing them if I'm getting pushed too much. I use the brush a lot because if I don't, I'll just get creep blocked, harassed, and pushed back to my tower. My build gives me a lot of HP at level 1, so a lot of the time I'll just go around the enemy creeps through the brush and literally walk up right in somebody's face and bind/soil them, then just start auto-attacking, though of course that's subject to change depending on what the other people in the lane are doing.

If at all possible, drop Tormented Soil in such a way that it hits both creeps and champions, but if you have to choose between one or the other, it's usually better to just aim for creeps unless you can get a combo on somebody and you know they don't have Flash and/or Cleanse. You can also drop a Soil on a champion and then watch what they do - they may momentarily move away from their creeps and into your line of sight, giving you a brief opportunity to catch them in a Dark Binding as they move off of your Soil... that actually works a lot more often than I expect it to, so take advantage of it if you can. If a champ is low and running from you, drop a Soil in their escape path - it might kill them. If a champ is hovering at low health behind his creeps or just out of your range, don't be afraid to Flash and bind him (just be quick about it and coordinate with your lane mate for the kill). Don't be afraid to use your ult either - it can save you if you're running from a gank or it can score you a double kill (or both if you get a nice turn-around). Also use it to finish off a fleeing champion - a kill is a kill.

Baiting people into your tower is also kinda easy with Morgana, since a lot of mediocre players will tunnel vision once you're low health and tower dive straight into your Dark Binding (just don't miss). Alternatively, if you miss the bind, you can pop your ult and just run in circles around the tower while they're snared/stunned. Don't expect it to work much on smart players though, unless they just get cocky - which happens.

If you're playing against Teemo, shield yourself and use yourself as a minesweeper whenever you see him drop a mushroom. Also use yourself as a minesweeper to clear out the brush for your and your lane mate. You take no damage and don't get snared from his shrooms with Black Shield on, and hitting one shroom doesn't eat up your shield... so you can take out as many as you can find before your shield's duration is up.

Use Black Shield constantly. The mana cost is low and it completely nullifies a lot of abilities from many champions.

In team fights, my goal is generally to try and get my ult stun off without dying while blocking the other team's IWIN button (Fearstick's Dark Wind comes to mind). How exactly I do this tends to vary from fight to fight, but it usually comes after the primary initiation from a proper tank and usually involves either Flashing in or Flashing out. If nothing else, shield your hard carry so he doesn't get disabled off the bat.

Also FYI: if you have a Zilean on your team, don't be afraid to straight up initiate with Morgana. If you pop your ult and then die with Zilean's ult on you, your ult doesn't get interrupted. It just keeps going and everybody will be stunned right around the time you come back to life. Probably works with Guardian Angel too, but I haven't had the chance to try it because 99% of my games end before I can even build one.

Aside from that, I think the biggest thing about playing Morgana is being able to read the opposing team. You have to be able to tell when that TF is going to throw his gold card and who he's aiming for. You have to be able to predict when Blitz is gonna go for a grab or when Ashe is gonna fire her arrow. You need to look at positioning and quickly decide who Poppy is going to charge, or who Kassadin is gonna silence, or who Alistar is gonna knock back, or whatever else. You have to stop these things from happening to critical team members and you can't do it too early or the other team will just wait it out. Sometimes you might be able to bait the other team into using these abilities on you, which makes them a lot easier to predict and stop. Regardless, it can be difficult (I still fail at stopping Ashe arrows sometimes cause they just come out of nowhere), but once you get good at it you become totally invaluable to your team.

I like your guide a lot. I like playing as support Morgana over AP Morgana. I think she excels as support, and your guide covers what a Morgana support should have. I am a little curious though about getting 2 Catalysts without upgrading either first. Not seen it often, wondered if you had a special reasoning behind it.

I am a little curious though about getting 2 Catalysts without upgrading either first. Not seen it often, wondered if you had a special reasoning behind it.

I usually get two Catalysts for the added survivability and early game staying power. If farming is going too slow, I might upgrade one to a Rod before getting the second - it just depends. Most of the time though, I go with two Catalysts.

Quote:

personaly I'd changed the Rune Books to

...

I actually had scaling CDR in blues initially, but swapped it out to flat CDR because I found that most of my games ended before level 18 and I never really got the full benefit. Plus I like having a stronger early game in general, which flat CDR helps with.

I dont double stack RoA because I feel its just too much gold going to something thats redundant. Other than that we build very similar morgana. I wished this guide would have touched on combat with morgana a bit more... I mean I can hit a fly from 30 paces with the root, but the shield timing still gives me headaches sometimes. Idk, its like I do well k/d/a with morgana when I use her, but my team still manages to lose.

I dont double stack RoA because I feel its just too much gold going to something thats redundant. Other than that we build very similar morgana. I wished this guide would have touched on combat with morgana a bit more... I mean I can hit a fly from 30 paces with the root, but the shield timing still gives me headaches sometimes. Idk, its like I do well k/d/a with morgana when I use her, but my team still manages to lose.

It's a little difficult to really talk in-depth about something like shield timing because it's something that you just need to get a feel for through time and experience.

If you see a TF lock a gold card and move forward, and you also see one of your teammates slightly out of position at the same time, then there's a decent chance that the TF might be going for it.

If you see a Poppy move away from a wall and start to circle around one of your teammates who is close to a wall, there's a decent chance she might be going for a charge.

If they have a Blitzcrank, put yourself in his shoes and watch your own teammates - think about possible opportunities that the Blitz would have to make a grab and try to be ready for them.

Whenever you see somebody overextend (either on your team or the other team), just quickly scan over everyone's positioning and think about what might happen... that's usually what I do. If you think something might happen, pre-cast the shield and be ready to click on whoever you think may need it. It can be a lot more difficult in the middle of a fight, but again it's just something that takes getting used to.

As for dual RoA's - I just really like the overall stat boosts if you get both rods early. Helps a ton with survivability and gives a decent amount of AP without having to spend gold on pure AP items which don't offer much of anything else.

It's a little difficult to really talk in-depth about something like shield timing because it's something that you just need to get a feel for through time and experience.

If you see a TF lock a gold card and move forward, and you also see one of your teammates slightly out of position at the same time, then there's a decent chance that the TF might be going for it.

If you see a Poppy move away from a wall and start to circle around one of your teammates who is close to a wall, there's a decent chance she might be going for a charge.

If they have a Blitzcrank, put yourself in his shoes and watch your own teammates - think about possible opportunities that the Blitz would have to make a grab and try to be ready for them.

Whenever you see somebody overextend (either on your team or the other team), just quickly scan over everyone's positioning and think about what might happen... that's usually what I do. If you think something might happen, pre-cast the shield and be ready to click on whoever you think may need it. It can be a lot more difficult in the middle of a fight, but again it's just something that takes getting used to.

As for dual RoA's - I just really like the overall stat boosts if you get both rods early. Helps a ton with survivability and gives a decent amount of AP without having to spend gold on pure AP items which don't offer much of anything else.

/agree

good examples but going into combat detail of any hero is way too tedious and variable to actually get it down to a formula. If you like a hero, just practice until you get good. Recently i got good at timing the binding so it goes through a minion just as they die, usually snaring an unsuspecting opponent hiding behind their wall of minions. (try this with blitz. ull laugh so hard to when you see the "wtf.." or "so gay.." comments pop up after they die.) All it takes is practice.